1. If you leave the Church because you feel you have found truth elsewhere you should feel obliged to tell others your story. Members who have left other churches and joined the LDS Church do it all the time. They give their story which usually includes the negatives of their former faith. The Ensign prints articles from converts that includes negatives of other faiths (though very mild).

2. If you leave because you feel the Church did something wrong to you, I think it is okay for you to share your side of the story. If you broke up with your boyfriend because he cheated on you or abused you, does he have the right to share the story because you were the dumper?

Where I do agree with you is when people leave the Church and become bitter. To me, bitterness means the person isn’t at peace with their decision to leave. They hide this insecurity by attacking the Church, and allow hate to fill up the emptiness inside. That isn’t the Church’s fault, so the best thing I feel for that person to do is keep their mouth shut and solve the problem through self introspection.

‘President Packer, President of the Quorum of the Twelve, recalled a time years ago when he met a young, disrespectful missionary. The young man had been referred by the Missionary Training Center to President Packer as a member of the Church’s Missionary Committee to determine if he should be sent home from his mission.
The young man was a smart aleck and impudent and rude, President Packer thought. He took the young man to lunch.
“There could only be one verdict,” President Packer said. “This young man could not go on a mission.”
As the pair returned to the Church Office Building, they saw the Missionary Training Center director waiting for them at the top of the stairs.
“I thought, ‘When we get up to the top I will have to send him home,’ but I thought, ‘I can’t do that.’ About half way up the steps I took hold of this young man and pulled him around so I was looking him right in the eyes. I said, ‘You have been disrespectful and impudent and don’t deserve much. But there is one thing you have got to know.’
“Then I bore my testimony to him, clear and pure testimony.
“Then I said, ‘Now, don’t you ever say you don’t know or that you haven’t been told, because you have been told. I will bear testimony against you at the judgment seat of Christ that you were told.’

Touche! and here it is. Now you know where the members get it from.

What other unofficial rules of etiquette do you feel should be adopted in the modern LDS church?

You’re a good author, but this was a very silly article.

I was excommunicated, at my own insistence, only a couple of months before a letter of resignation became possible.

I’m still a Mormon in all the ways that matter (believe me, if I could purge myself of all my Mormonism, I’d do it). I don’t feel any shame or regret, and I’m glad I had the courage to go through it all at the tender age of 18-19 (it was a long process from start to finish).

I’ll tell my story if I feel like it, to anyone who might be interested. If you’re offended, it’s a personal problem on your end. Sorry, but I’m not. The proclivity of the ultra-religious to preach themselves into my face at every opportunity, but cry foul when I give them some reasons as to my lack of interest in their fairy tales, bespeaks a dreadful double-standard.

“I find it very concerning that all books and materials are untrue with the exception of church sanctioned material.”
Me too rhonda. Like my previous statement, this is another way that members can feel safe. I even have a non-member friend who doesn’t want to believe in anything but the Bible because that would open up things too much, and she wouldn’t know “what to believe.”

“I never felt that the reason for the questioning was a genuine desire to know why, but simply a way to point out the errors of my logic”
I am sorry that they acted this way. Whatever happened to having a desire to understand another rather than change them? Obviously they had an agenda, and I can see why, but I wish we would focus more on love and understanding.

I do not carry ill feeling towards the church, I am simply saying, it is not so easy to leave and yes, there is almost a feeling of persecution at times. People lose family, spouses, children, friends, jobs, and many times their character is attached over leaving. It is assumed you either left over some offense, or you commited an offense, or you are lazy and can’t be bothered to come to church. If you don’t believe me than take a new listen to President Monson’s talk inviting the “the less active, the offended, the critical, the transgressor” into fellowship. Do this with an outsider’s view. Do you honestly believe that this is the only reason people leave? If I felt the church was true, there was no amount of offense that could keep me away from it. I am not critical, I just want the truth. I am not a transgressor, I live a moral life, and I am not less active (meaning I come to church only if I can get out bed). I have chosen not to come for my own reasons.
There was constant questioning as to why I was leaving, but I never felt that the reason for the questioning was a genuine desire to know why, but simply a way to point out the errors of my logic and the truthfulness of the church. I cannot accept the church is true simply on the basis that someone has a testimony of it. A feeling that something is true does not equate to it actually being so. Every research I carefully did was dismissed, and I was supposed to be courteus and accept truth based on a feeling or because a church official or book said so. I find it very concerning that all books and materials are untrue with the exception of church sanctioned material. I cannot accept that. Truth is truth no matter where you find it. Also, truth is consistent. When a crime is reported to the police, you will be questioned many times over, and by a few different people (no, I never commited a crime, my best friend is an RCMP cop). This is done so that they can tell if your story is consistent and to determine if you are telling the truth. There are too many inconsistencies with the church, and too many different revisions of events. I became very concerned when certain books and materials were removed from the church library (I was the librarian for a few months when I moved from the singles ward to the family ward). I asked if I could have the books, but the leaders said no, that they needed to be taken out of circulation. Do you ever study from the Journal of Discourses anymore? Why not? Isn’t it a saying that everything that comes out of a prophets mouth is scripture? In fact, you can no longer find those books in the Church site. I happen to have all of them. I can see why they were taken out of circulation. I showed consideration listening to their side and was rapidly dismissed when presenting mine, so after a while when people asked, I would simply say I am not willing to discuss it and they can find out for themselves if they ever feel inclined to do so.
It does not matter, I am no longer a member. I am now left alone and moved on with my life.

My wife spent a lot of time in Brazil as a kid growing up. Her father worked on the Itapu dam.

From what I understand, you, your father and one sister left the Church. While none of you were home taught much, since you have left you have had a hard time getting people to stop visiting. Even after you left, somehow you got assigned home teachers and visiting teachers and people kept sending your addresses out to the missionaries and others to contact.

I gather all of this happened in Brazil. An interesting facet, people would use a catch phrase that none of the Americans on this blog are familiar with to condemn you when they didn’t make progress. Lots of them used it in an obviously non-LDS (but possibly very local Brazilian?) manner.

Bless your heart. You’ve had a different experience.

BTW, I googled “bear witness against me at the bar of the Lord” in English and the exact chain of words came up empty, which was interesting. I ran some other google searches as well. I’m perplexed, I’ll bet there is a different translation that ought to bring up a hit or two more. I’m just unaware of anything in mainstream LDS experience that sounds like that, even close, in any related idiom.

If I might ask, where were you when this happened? Mato Grosso? Anyway, forgive my being perplexed.

And accept my sympathy.

What an interesting idea. I didn’t come up with that one.

For me there was a totally unexpected spiritual revelation about polygamy that changed my view of Church history dramatically while simultaneously handing me a way to deal with all past and future issues that fell into the realm of “I’d never do that personally, so I guess I just don’t have a testimony of it.” (Well, that over simplifies things, but explains it well enough.)

rhonda – (Like Ray) I’ve never heard anyone use that phrase before. It sounds like the kind of thing that could get one struck by lightning.

Come to think about it, in the relationships I’ve witnessed that have broken up, more often than not, the dumper was more than validated in their decision. Many times both the dumpee and dumper had reasons for the relationship going bad, but more often than not the dumper was in a bad relationship where the dumpee was either emotionally or physically abusive, or they were consistently unfaithful in the relationship. Eventually the dumper had enough and ended it. Are you suggesting that in such a scenario the dumper has no right to tell their story?

Now, expanding this courtesy to the relationship between an individual and a group (church, club, place of employment, etc.) is even sillier. You cannot expect that such a relationship is on equal grounds? The individual is at a great disadvantage here when trying to voice their own story against that of a group, especially if the group is large and has a lot of financial backing to perform PR work. It is even harder for the individual to get an empathetic (not necessarily sympathetic) ear from anyone within that group. I think in the case where an individual leaves a group they deserve every right to telling their story.

Now, that said, I do think there are cases where a person can take telling their story too far. For example protesting on church property (as was mentioned earlier) or trolling forums and blogs, deliberately derailing the conversation just to express their opinions. It is unfortunate that some people feel the need to do this as it only promotes feelings of contention.

When it comes to formulating an opinion in regards to one’s story vs. another’s. I dislike taking sides, but if I must I tend to listen to both sides of the story before coming to any conclusions. I also take into consideration the behavior of the individuals after the break up because generally a person’s actions will hint at the integrity of their words. Note that I use ‘integrity’ rather than ‘truthfulness’ as one can be true to themself and their beliefs (their story) without having a firm grasp of the actual ‘truth’ (whatever that is–something I’m finding more and more abstract as time goes on).

And for those who may be wondering, I’m currently a member of the LDS church in good standing. I’ve recently found my ‘testimony’ to be fastly deteriorating in light of my recent findings about the early church history. It’s still a struggle for me though and a hard pill to swallow. I’m at the point where I’ve decided to give the Book of Mormon one final good read alongside some prayerful consideration before I decide to leave (sort of a due dilligence thing). The difficulty is that most of my motivation to do so is gone. I really don’t expect a positive answer when I consider what I now know. It’s very disheartening to say the least.

Oops, I just told part of my story, didn’t I? But wait, where does your courtesy rule fit in when one hasn’t left yet?

I wonder if that is a cultural thing – or the product of a particular Bishop’s or Stake President’s influence. I’ve never heard that sentence used in my entire life.

Frankly, I think one of the reasons why the Church rarely speaks publicly **as an organization** and asks Priesthood leaders not to do so is specifically because it has taken the initiative to call a disciplinary council, thus taking the role in Hawkgrrrl’s analogy, of the dumper. (I’m not saying the Church is aware of Hawkgrrrl’s theory, but rather that it understands the need for the dumpee to own the story.) I know the official counsel is not followed in some cases by those individuals involved – and, rarely, the Church will make an official statement when it feels someone in a high profile position is grossly misrepresenting an excommunication – but the explicit counsel is to allow the excommunicated member to “own the fallout story”.

I wish local leaders accepted that more fully and overcame the natural tendency to take offense at what they hear, but we all make mistakes in our callings. I also wish I could deliver a solid spiritual slapping to ANY PRIESTHOOD LEADER who addresses the reasons for someone’s excommunication in sacrament meeting or any other such general, but “non-public” setting – except in the cases of exceptions identified by the Brethren.

The reason you left your ex is because you found out that he lied about being married and will continue to find unsuspecting victims to lie to again like he did to you.

Do you still think you should stay quiet?

Caveat emptor?

The problem with the people who leave the church is that they feel there is a pattern of misrepresentation going on and that the church is like the gigolo that preys financially on the believer and disparages the former lover.

Perhaps the dumper has the right to expose the dumpee for what it is.

How do you like my extension of your analogy?

Sorry, one size does not fit all. Wake up sweet sister, the world is not black and white. While I have very little interest in going out and spreading the word that the mormon church is not what it claims to be, if someone sincerely wanted to know more about why I left and what I know, I wouldn’t hesitate to tell them. I’m pretty much a live and let live kind of guy. But don’t tell me to remain silent.

You ask at the end of your post “So, do you agree that the Fallout Story rule is good etiquette for those leaving the church (and vice-versa)? Can you think of valid exceptions?”. I think it should be apparent that I don’t agree. How about instead of expecting us to keep quiet you weigh what is said. Or just say, “I’m not interested in hearing what you have to say”. Personally I can respect that. But please respect the Postmo’s right to free speech. Anyone who has a brain should be able to determine for themselves whether a someone has a valid complaint or is just ranting like a lunatic. Are you concerned that the listener doesn’t have enough common sense to fairly judge what is said?
It’s been said that there are two sides to a story, and that’s absolutely true. So let both sides be heard.

That is very unusual. In my experience, even active members have a hard time getting that kind of home teaching or visiting.

Did you have a family member encouraging them or asking for follow-up contact (not counting random tracting visits by the missionaries that you get just by virtue of living in America).

the good old standby — where did they get that? You are dealing with some seriously unusual people, or you were. I’m wondering what happened. It is really too bad, whatever it was.

I was asked recently by leaders in one of our wards how they should react to those who request that they not be contacted. My response was simple, “Honor their wishes. Do not contact them. Send a note to them every 6-12 months asking if they still want to be left alone, and honor whatever their answer is. If they request that their names be removed, take is as your responsibility to see that they are removed. They are adults and responsible for their own interactions with God. Let them make those decisions for themselves.”

One of the most ironic things I can imagine is that when those who are assigned to Home Teachers request that they not be contacted, performing Home Teaching according to the PRINCIPLE of Home Teaching (being willing to do whatever your assigned families want of you) means that you not contact them. That’s extremely easy to forget.

As to dating a psycho, no, I can honestly say I haven’t, but I empathize with anyone who has. What a “psycho” is can be pretty subjective. The law is in place to protect us from actual “psychos” whether they are ex-boyfriends or ex-religious leaders. Getting the church to back off is a heckuva lot easier than getting a stalking ex-boyfriend to back off.